The Recruitment Process: How early is too early?

Story by Rob Orazietti

Photo from Joe Lombardi's Twitter

                                                          

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the country. With this growth has come a quick shift in college recruiting practices, with players as young as eighth grade committing to college programs.

Joe Lombardi says he doesn't like it.

"I am very uncomfortable about what’s happening and I’m talking about it at length with coaches, they’re uncomfortable with it," he said in a recent telephone interview..

College recruiting at the Division I level is a hot button issue.  Long Island native Lombardi, shared his opinion on the practice of early high school recruits in a recent telephone interview.

 As the founder of Laxlessons.com a website focusing totally on high school lacrosse players, profiles and teams, he has interviewed many young players and even gotten parental feedback about the recruiting process.

It all began when Lombardi, a received a tweet from a rising high school freshman that the player has just been offered a commitment to play at the University of North Carolina following high school graduation.

He knew this was breaking news in the lacrosse community but he questioned whether to report it. Lombardi says he thought to himself  “Do I report this? Do I ignore this? I’m not even sure this kid even exists.”

Last summer Lombardi did indeed confirm the story and sent out a tweet to his followers.  This single tweet created breaking news and a firestorm of replies on this controversial topic.

Over the years high school early recruiting has been the focus of a hot debate. Many young high school recruits are still being asked by other college coaches to play for another team, a process called poaching.  Poaching is not the only issue.

Some of these early recruits have never even played in a high school game and some players find themselves academically unable to get into the colleges they are committed too. The arguments about academics and maturity have raised some concerns by college coaches and has them reevaluated the early recruiting process. Many coaches want a rule implemented by the NCAA to ban the practice of recruiting before sophomore year in high school. 

Lombardi will be one journalist following the new developments on this topic. He says early recruiting does not benefit the sport of lacrosse. 

"What it does is it cheapens the whole process because academics should be just as important as athletics and to say, 'yeah we’ll take a commitment from a kid who’s in 8^th grade.' it kind of undermines the academic integrity of the school, "he says. "The reality is that there is so much going on with the NCAA it may take time to regulate it. 

Joe Lombardi Audio 

Rob Orazietti Interview Transcript with Joe Lombardi

RO: I want to start by asking you what got you into the Sports Journalism industry? What sparked your interest? Talk about your career path and how it has evolved?

JL You know, its funny Rob because a lot of my friends when I was in high school and college, they were always kind of frustrated by me, because a lot of them didn’t know what they wanted to do or didn’t know what their majors wanted to decide on. They were always wondering why I always knew and I would just go back, when I was a kid, um, and this wasn’t anything that I got from my parents but when I was kid I just had this natural curiosity and I was also a big fan of you know whatever event were going on in the world, not only sports, but news event and I just took a photo of me after a Christmas dinner when I was maybe 7 years old and I’m wearing, you know, pajamas and I have a microphone in my hand. I am interviewing my grandmother. And I remember asking her what did you like most about Christmas dinner. And you know I just tape recorded it and from there when I was 10 or 11 I started writing my own magazine and making everyone on my street subscribe whether like it or not and then when I got into high school the athletic director of Lincoln High School—which is on the Hudson River, near the Tapan Zee Bridge—and he was into communications himself and he did some sports coaching on the side in addition to being AD, Phil Derocco. In the springtime, he also went to the college I attended, University of Dayton, um, and he just saw I was really into it and he said Joe, “ You got to be our PA guy for the basketball team” I started doing that as a sophomore and I remember I literally had sweaty palms before the first game and, um, but took a liking to it, developed my own style, and when it came down to schools a good friend of my dad was managing editor at “Incoherent” and went on to be the Dean of Journalism at University of Missouri, Tim Atwater. And so I asked him, “What schools should I look at?” He mentioned Syracuse, Dayton, and Duke and uh I didn’t get into Duke (Laughs), um, Syracuse I was very fortunate to get into, but, I don’t know, maybe it just something part of my curiously where I figured pedaling back to where I lived. I wanted to see another part of the country, um, private Catholic school Dayton very top notch division 1 basketball, I had a good chance to cover that. The team made the Final 8. So just going out to Dayton and not knowing anyone within 600 miles. My dad dropped me off at the dorm room really kind of got me curious and meeting people and developing my communications skills and I got hands on experience too which really helped.

RO: It is interesting that you mention curiosity because  curiosity is obviously a huge attribute for a successful sports journalist. You are a recognized name in the lacrosse community yet you mostly covered basketball in your younger years. What peaked your interest for lacrosse communications because I know that Dayton is not known to be a big lacrosse school. Was it curiousity?

JL: Exactly. Yea you’re absolutely right. It’s funny, at Irvington High school we’ve had lacrosse the last 6 years but when I went there we did not have a lacrosse program as you know like a lot of schools. Uh, we used to play in gym class and that was my first introduction and I really loved it and um I just thought this game combines hockey and combines basketball, its similar to football, this is really cool we don’t we have this here and then I went out to Dayton like you said it wasn’t big, but I did get to meet a bunch of guys from Long Island and they told me a lot more about it. There was club lacrosse at Dayton and then I learned a little bit, but the big thing, Rob, was I started working out of Dayton my first job was in Westchester county where I grew up and I was told by the sports editor if you wanted to do well here you better learn lacrosse, so along with curiosity, I think another important attribute in this field is you got to work and thrive on challenges. You can’t be afraid of challenges. You can’t. The worst thing I can hear from a reporter is, “I don’t want to cover tennis, I don’t know anything about it” or whatever is. Your job as a reporter is to learn about it and ask questions and be curious. That was what it kind of was for me for with lacrosse, like I knew college basketball back and forward at that point, I knew football, um, but I didn’t know lacrosse and I learned about it as I asked questions. I never thought I’d wind up writing about lacrosse for but I did, I wound  up writing the spectator’s version of the book as someone who never played the game, um, because it wasn’t available for me to play. I just learned and became a student of the game and that’s it, really. And then another thing that separates it is you know while football has popularity and even though its declining with all of its concussions issues and basketball does in terms of college opportunities does women’s and men’s so there is so many more than lacrosse and then I became really in tuned to the recruiting scene and for me there is so much interest in where a kids going, what school they are going to wind up from an academic and athletic standpoint. Lacrosse combines the athletics and academics more than any other sport, too.

RO: College lacrosse recruiting has been changing quickly, with players committing to college programs as early as eighth grade. What is your personal opinion of all these changes?

JL: Yea, I am very uncomfortable about what’s happening and I’m talking about it at length with coaches, they’re uncomfortable with it. Basically, I go back to a Sunday night in September 2013, I’m on my way out to dinner and as I’m standing at my car I get an email. And the email, Rob, its from a young kid and he said, “Mr. Lombardi, I just wanted to let you know I’m in the airport at Chapel Hill, I committed to Coach Breschi and UNC and I was leading scorer on the JV team last year as an 8^th grader.” And I was just like whoa, wait a minute, this is by far the earliest, you know, freshman in September. I kind of paused and said what do I do? Do I report this? Do I ignore it? I’m not really comfortable. I don’t even know if this kid exists. I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him play. Um, but I confirmed that it did happen and posted a Tweet and then it all began. As you can imagine there was some pretty crazy responses, it was the earliest commitment ever as far as I knew in any sport and then, as you know, it just escalated and we had an 8^th grader commit this year, actually a couple of 8^th graders, 1 on Long Island. But what bothers me is even if the coaches told me we only want to do it this way this kid on Long Island committed, Brendan O’Neill, 6’ as an 8^thgrader, very athletic, um but the thing is, ok fine you fit the path of Division 1 player, but how about academically? He hasn’t even taken a high school class, how can Penn State say, “Yeah Brendan come and play here.” What it does is it cheapens the whole process because academics should be just as important as athletics and to say, “yeah we’ll take a commitment from a kid who’s in 8^th grade” it kind of undermines the academic integrity of the school. The reality is that there is so much going on with the NCAA it may take time to regulate it. 

RO: Joe, thank you for your time. It was awesome talking to you. A lot of great advice and interesting views.

JL: Good stuff Rob. Thank you it was a pleasure. Good luck with everything.